Songs of Experience - Part 3

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Montrose said:
U2... should totally disregard the unwritten subtext about how dying when your album comes out is a sure way to get to #1 on the charts.


Sent from my fingertips.
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:huh: Too soon?
:applaud: Nope, that was funny and purely because it feels like Bono would do just about anything to be "relevant" (the infamous short lived "guy-liner on a middle aged man look" is the best example I can think of at the moment).
 
Poor Bono. He gets a bad rap.

One could argue that Bono came damn close to the "death as a career move" when he got seriously injured from his bike accident in 2014. Thankfully, he lived and was able to go on with the tour. I'm sure the rehab was no cake walk.
 
Look I like Blackstar, and I agree with the sentiment of doing what they want and not what they think others want... but leave it at that. Bowie's album would not have been as commercially successful as it's been, and Lazarus would absolutely never crack the Billboard Top 40 if he were still alive. It's unfortunate and sad, but true.

Using chart success to measure actual success in this day and age is dumb anyways. It takes extraordinary circumstances for an aging non pop it country act to crack the Billboard singles charts today. The rush to include downloads and YouTube hits in measuring success has led to a youth based dominance of the charts that isn't changing anytime soon, and also isn't a true barometer of popularity of acts that don't fit into those genres.
 
Perhaps slightly unrelated, but I don't think Ordinary Love has got enough credit for what a success it was. It has a respectable 31,7 million viewers on YouTube (+8,5 million for the Tonight Show-performance), making it the fifth most watched U2 video; it has about 26 million plays on Spotify, and anecdotally I've seen the live acoustic performance pop up as a topic on several message boards in a sort of "hey, why do so many people dislike U2 when they do performances like this one?"-context. It's not much at all compared to what popular current artists get on their popular songs, but it's a good result and considerably better than anything else they've done in the last decade.

I think my point here is that, no they're not going to compete with the most popular artists around for chart positions, but I still believe they can do a lot better than they did with SOI and NLOTH. If they make songs that grab people, and market them as well as they did with Ordinary Love, they can have what I think both us here and U2 themselves would consider "a big success". Every Breaking Wave had the "grab people"-part down, but it came off the heels of iTunes controversy and after yet another awful choice of first single. Hardly ideal in terms of marketing potential.
 
Blackstar was already on the road to being successful. It had great reviews, and the Blackstar video had more views than Get on Your Boots, which designed to be a hit. Also had more views that. Any SOI track, but it's not a fair comparison since they were given away before videos were released.



Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using U2 Interference mobile app
 
MrPryck2U said:
Poor Bono. He gets a bad rap.

One could argue that Bono came damn close to the "death as a career move" when he got seriously injured from his bike accident in 2014. Thankfully, he lived and was able to go on with the tour. I'm sure the rehab was no cake walk.
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If rehab was a cake walk, Bono would have eaten it all, right?
 
ChargedVT said:
I remember when everyone first heard it and a lot of people on here were raving over it, saying it was better than Vertigo etc... didn't take long to swing the other way, did it?
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I have a vastly different recollection of it than you do.

Yes, there are always the sheeples who think everything U2 do is just the bees knees, but my recollection of the reaction here by everyone other than "those who baa" was very much a mixed bag, for Boots and No Line in general, right from the start.
 
MrPryck2U said:
Isn't that close to your current avatar? You're better off sticking with Michael Douglas.
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I always thought of him as more :|


as an aside, check out this sweet review everyone
U2: 'Songs of Innocence' Track-by-Track Review

features insightful commentary like:
"“The Troubles” closes out the album with a slower groove, advising troublemakers to watch it."
 
New Massive Attack album app may point in the direction of what to expect for SOE.
 
Interview with Bono from U2 about Edun - DIE WELT mobil

"Well, we have been listening to a lot of "The Police". We have been listening to the first three Police albums – realising that these records are minimum masterpieces. They are right up there with the best work ever made, right up there with the Beatles. And that has become more and more of an influence. It's an influence on our album "Songs of innocence". But I think it's gonna be even more of an influence on our next record Songs of experience."
 
Cancer45 said:
Interview with Bono from U2 about Edun - DIE WELT mobil

"Well, we have been listening to a lot of "The Police". We have been listening to the first three Police albums – realising that these records are minimum masterpieces. They are right up there with the best work ever made, right up there with the Beatles. And that has become more and more of an influence. It's an influence on our album "Songs of innocence". But I think it's gonna be even more of an influence on our next record Songs of experience."
Click to expand...

well that's really encouraging - here's what I associate with those early Police records

- short songs, trimmed of fat
- high energy
- huge hooks
- stripped down production, clean, live feel.
- occasional flirtations with experimentation

of course, the strength of The Police, beyond the excellent songwriting was that they were tight as f***. Musicians of the highest order that drew from punk energy, but played with a jazz musician's touch. U2 are gonna have to up their game to play to this level

EDIT: you could make an argument that Ordinary Love is U2 trying on their The Police "shoes." it's probably the best indicator of the direction they're heading with SOE
 
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JoRu said:
Perhaps slightly unrelated, but I don't think Ordinary Love has got enough credit for what a success it was. It has a respectable 31,7 million viewers on YouTube (+8,5 million for the Tonight Show-performance), making it the fifth most watched U2 video; it has about 26 million plays on Spotify, and anecdotally I've seen the live acoustic performance pop up as a topic on several message boards in a sort of "hey, why do so many people dislike U2 when they do performances like this one?"-context. It's not much at all compared to what popular current artists get on their popular songs, but it's a good result and considerably better than anything else they've done in the last decade.
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with you 100% on this song.

great vocal, great energy, band put in a strong performance.
 
Hollow Island said:
No, it's valid, comparing the success of music that's made for its own sake vs. music that was made to be a hit. The hit failed. Because it was a shit song.
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Do you honestly believe Lazarus would have cracked the top 40 if David Bowie were still alive? That's why it's a terrible comparison. There were clear extenuating circumstances that led to Lazarus's success.
 
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